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Chapter 4. Setting up Organizations and Distributors
Subscription Asset Manager manages subscriptions on-premise, as opposed to the default configuration where both subscriptions and content are administered through Customer Portal Subscription Management.
Subscriptions are distributed from the main account (at the Portal) to an organization within a Subscription Asset Manager instance. This is an important point — a Subscription Asset Manager server does not manage anything. It is organizations within the Subscription Asset Manager instance that are registered to the Portal and then subsequently handle local subscriptions and systems.
4.1. About the Structure of Organizations and Distributors
The organizations in Subscription Asset Manager provide structure to the systems within the infrastructure.
The organization structure can be flat, with a single local organization. Alternatively, it can have multiple organizations which are independent from each other. Organizations are always opaque to one another, with separate subscription and system inventories. Using multiple organizations allows multiple, independent groups to be attached and to manage their own subscriptions and systems through local services.
Subscription Asset Manager does not host content, only subscription services. Local systems still must connect to Customer Portal Subscription Management for content or go through the Subscription Asset Manager server as a proxy.
Figure 4.1. Hosted Content Delivery and On-Premise Subscription Service
A system is assigned to one organization. It is identified with that organization. An organization must be defined for every system, as part of its registration process.
An organization within Subscription Asset Manager is registered to the account in the Portal. This is a high-level division within the infrastructure.
Important
Creating distributors is a tech preview feature.
The Portal and the Subscription Asset Manager organization communicate over a secure but external network connection. There may be some instances where a particular Subscription Asset Manager organization cannot or should not be accessible over a public network or a business reason why a Subscription Asset Manager organization should be subdivided into child organizations, which are local to each other.
Subscription Asset Manager allows distributors to be created underneath a Subscription Asset Manager organization. This is essentially an instance within an instance. The parent organization attaches subscriptions to the child organization and creates a manifest locally.
A distributor is never created in the Customer Portal and is never visible there. It is created and maintained under another Subscription Asset Manager instance.
Figure 4.2. A Hierarchy with Distributors
A distributor is one way for a Subscription Asset Manager instance to subdivide its subscriptions.
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